Pos   /   Country   /   New Daily cases   /   Total Deaths   /        Daily Deaths /           Active Cases   /           Deaths/1M Pop

               World    4,85,084              /             46,61,312            /             8,648     /             1,86,74,556               /             598

1             USA        1,23,121              /             6,82,275              /             1,870     /             94,57,625               /             2,047

2             UK          26,628   /             1,34,446              /             185        /             13,00,771            /               1,968

3             Iran        22,329   /             1,15,167              /             408        /             5,98,462              /               1,350

4             Russia    17,837   /             1,94,249              /             781        /             5,63,803              /               1,330

5             Turkey   27,802   /             60,393   /             276        /             4,48,368              /             707

6             Mexico  4,161     /             2,67,969              /             221        /             3,82,856              /               2,053

7             India      27,491   /             4,43,528              /             281        /             3,57,355              /               318

8             Brazil     13,406   /             5,87,847              /             709        /             3,23,566              /               2,742

9             France   10,327   /             1,15,697              /             94           /             2,44,030              /               1,768

10           Honduras             668        /             9,370     /             30           /             2,36,140              /               928

11           Malaysia              15,669   /             21,587   /             463        /             2,25,277              /               657

12           Spain     3,261     /             85,548   /             155        /             2,24,831              /               1,829

13           Vietnam               10,508   /             15,936   /             276        /             2,20,658              /               162

14           Philippines           18,056   /             35,529   /             222        /             1,77,670              /               319

15           Germany              8,845     /             93,319   /             69           /             1,69,097              /               1,110

16           Poland   537        /             75,433   /             8             /             1,60,337              /               1,996

17           Thailand               11,786   /             14,621   /             136        /             1,29,025              /               209

18           Italy       4,021     /             1,30,027              /             48           /             1,22,340              /               2,154

19           Japan     4,171     /             16,846   /             49           /             1,15,340              /             134

20           Iraq        4,400     /             21,596   /             46           /             1,03,103              /             523

26           Pakistan               2,574     /             26,865   /             78           /             85,801   /             119

72           Bangladesh         2,074     /             27,007   /             35           /             20,765   /             162

ANTONY BLINKEN SAYS TIES WITH PAKISTAN UNDER REVIEW OVER AFGHANISTAN

The Biden administration will review US ties with Pakistan in light of Islamabad’s support for Taliban terrorists while professing to help Washington in Afghanistan, the country’s top diplomat told the US Congress on Monday. Amid considerable disquiet among lawmakers and the US commentariat over Pakistan’s duplicity in Afghanistan, US secretary of state Antony Blinken acknowledged at a congressional hearing that Islamabad had played a dodgy role that involved “hedging its bets constantly about the future of Afghanistan,” and in light of this, the US would re-assess ties to formulate what role Pakistan needs to play in the region.

“(Pakistan’s role) is one that’s involved harbouring members of the Taliban, including the Haqqanis... It is one that’s also involved in different points cooperation with us on counter-terrorism. It has a multiplicity of interests some that are in conflict — a clear conflict — with ours,” Blinken said while responding to lawmakers who grilled him on Pakistan’s “duplicitous” role in Afghanistan over the past two decades. Consequently, the US, going forward, would insist that “every country including Pakistan, make good on the expectations that the international community has of what is required of a Taliban-led GOVT if it is to receive any legitimacy of any kind or any support,” Blinken said.

But lawmakers cutting across party lines demanded more severe action against Islamabad for its subversive role, including ending its status as a major non-Nato ally that opened up a military and financial aid spigot that cost US taxpayers billions of dollars. The US bankrolling of Pakistan came even as its support for Taliban terrorists claimed the lives of American soldiers in Afghanistan. In a follow-up Senate hearing on Tuesday, the Republican ranking member of the foreign relations committee, Senator James Risch, said any country that backed Taliban “should risk a strategic downgrade in their relationship with the US”, even as Blinken appeared to warn Pakistan against a hasty recognition of the Taliban GOVT.

BOOK: TOP U.S. OFFICER FEARED TRUMP COULD ORDER CHINA STRIKE

Concerned about then U.S. President Donald Trump’s mental state, the Joint Chiefs of Staff , General Mark Milley, called his Chinese counterpart, twice, to mitigate the risk of a war, according to a new book ‘Peril’, by renowned journalist Bob Woodward and Robert Costa of the Washington Post.

According to reporting in the Washington Post, General Milley called the People’s Liberation Army’s General Li Zuocheng on October 30 , 2020 – days before the U.S. general election and again, on January 8, 2021, after the U.S. Capitol insurrection.

The first call occurred after a review of military intelligence by Mr. Milley, which suggested that China was concerned that the U.S. was going to attack it, based on U.S. military exercises in the South China Sea and Mr Trump’s language on China , as per the Post’s reporting.

“General Li, I want to assure you that the American government is stable and everything is going to be okay,” Mr. Milley , a Trump-appointee said, as per the report. “We are not going to attack or conduct any kinetic operations against you.”

Two days after a right wing mob attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, Mr. Milley reportedly made his second call to Mr. Li and said ,“We are 100 percent steady. Everything’s fine. But democracy can be sloppy sometimes.”

Mr. Milley also spoke with U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on that day, as per a CNN review of the book and assured her the U.S.’s nuclear weapons were safe. Ms. Pelosi called Mr Trump “crazy” – a characterisation Mr. Milley agreed with, according to a call transcript obtained by the authors. Mr. Milley then called the service chiefs and CIA Director Gina Haspel and told them to stay alert.

Mr. Milley also, according to the Washington Post’s review, called the admiral in charge of the Indo Pacific Command and recommended he postpone military exercises (they were postponed). He also told senior army officers that while the President alone could order a nuclear strike, he (Milley) would need to be involved.

Peril is due to be released next week.

AFGHANISTAN ON BRINK OF COLLAPSE, TALIBAN FIGHTERS SURVIVING ON DONATION: REPORT

Since its takeover by the Taliban, Afghanistan has been facing cash crunch, with global aids freezing and daily limits set on withdrawal from bank accounts. Now, a report in New York Post has claimed that most of the Taliban fighters have not received money in months.

Most of the countries have refused to recognise the Taliban regime, which officially calls the country Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. And so, cash is barely trickling in.

After the Taliban takeover, foreign assistance was frozen and the International Monetary Fund and World Bank halted loans. The United States also stopped $9.4 billion in reserves to the country's central bank. The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) also asked its 39 member nations to block Taliban assets.

In such a scenario, Afghanistan's econpmy has been crumbling and prices soaring. The United Nations cautioned this week that 97 per cent of Afghanistan's population could soon go below the poverty line - a worrying level from the pre-Taliban takeover figure of 72 per cent.

The New York Post reports that a significant number of Taliban fighters outside major cities are surviving on very little food and sleep in trucks or whatever suitable shelter they can find. The publication also claimed that local community members give food and other supplies to Taliban members.

The Taliban have already imposed a $200 withdrawal limit on citizens who travel for miles to visit a city and then wait for hours in queues to get cash. Many banks have been closed since the Taliban takeover, and those that are open have limited cash withdrawals.

FORMER US INTELLIGENCE AGENTS ADMIT GIVING DEFENSE SECRETS TO UAE

The US accused Marc Baier, Ryan Adams and Daniel Gericke of sharing critical US defense technology and secrets with government agencies in the UAE and at least one unnamed private company, in a criminal complaint that charged them with violating US hacking and arms trafficking laws.

Their operation began in October 2015 when they were among several employees of an unnamed US firm offered lucrative jobs in the UAE to work on cyber-intelligence, according to the complaint, filed in San Francisco federal court. By February 2016, they had accepted the jobs and were using their contacts in the US to obtain restricted intelligence on behalf of their new employer.

Later that year, Baier persuaded another company to sell him a cyberweapon known as zero-click malware, which allows hackers to remotely infiltrate individual devices without their owners’ engagement, according to the US. The $750,000 deal was executed that year, and the technology was weaponized as a tool called Karma, detailed in a 2019 report by Reuters, which reported the charges earlier Tuesday.

BIDEN FAILED TO SECURE SUMMIT WITH XI JINPING IN CALL LAST WEEK: REPORT

President Joe Biden proposed a first face-to-face summit with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, in a call last week, but failed to secure an agreement, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.

The newspaper quoted multiple people briefed on last Thursday's call as saying that Xi did not take Biden up on the offer and instead insisted Washington adopt a less strident tone toward Beijing.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But a source who was among those briefed on the 90-minute Biden-Xi call confirmed the report was accurate.

"Xi apparently intimated that the tone and atmosphere of the relationship needed to be improved first," the source said.

The Financial Times quoted one of its sources as saying Biden had floated the summit as one of several possibilities for follow-on engagement with Xi, and he had not expected an immediate response.

ARMY COLONY EVICTIONS TRIGGER MASSIVE ANTI-TALIBAN PROTEST

Thousands of Afghans protested against the Taliban in the southern city of Kandahar on Tuesday, according to a former government official and local television footage, after residents were asked to vacate a residential army colony.

Protesters gathered in front of the governor’s house in Kandahar after around 3,000 families were asked to leave the colony, according to the former government official who witnessed the crowds.

Footage from local media showed crowds of people blocking a road in the city.

The affected area is predominantly occupied by the families of retired army generals and other members of the Afghan security forces. The families, some of whom had lived in the district for almost 30 years, had been given three days to vacate, the official, who had spoken to some of those affected, said.

Taliban spokesmen did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the evictions. Sporadic protests against the Taliban, who swept to power in Afghanistan with the capture of Kabul almost a month ago, have ended in occasionally deadly clashes, although there were no confirmed reports of violence on Tuesday.

QUAD ‘DOOMED TO FAIL’, SAYS CHINA AHEAD OF SUMMIT

China on Tuesday hit out at the upcoming summit of the leaders of the Quad — India, Australia, Japan and the United States — describing the group as a “close and exclusive clique” that was “doomed to fail”.

“It is China’s consistent belief that any regional cooperation mechanism should follow the trend of peace and development, and help promote mutual trust and cooperation among regional countries rather than target a third party or undermine its interests,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said to a question at a daily briefing about the September 24 summit in Washington, which will be attended by Prime Ministers Narendra Modi, Scott Morrison (Australia) and Yoshihide Suga (Japan) and U.S. President Joe Biden.

“Forming closed and exclusive cliques targeting other countries runs counter to the trend of the times and deviates from the expectation of regional countries. It thus wins no support and is doomed to fail,” Mr. Zhao said.

AFGHANISTAN: TALIBAN LEADERS IN BUST-UP AT PRESIDENTIAL PALACE, SOURCES SAY

A major row broke out between leaders of the Taliban over the make-up of the group's new government in Afghanistan, senior Taliban officials told the BBC.

The argument between the group's co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar and a cabinet member happened at the presidential palace, they said.

There have been unconfirmed reports of disagreements within the Taliban's leadership since Mr Baradar disappeared from public view in recent days.

These have been officially denied.

One Taliban source told BBC Pashto that Mr Baradar and Khalil ur-Rahman Haqqani - the minister for refugees and a prominent figure within the militant Haqqani network - had exchanged strong words, as their followers brawled with each other nearby.

It has been said that the row stemmed from divisions over who in the Taliban should take credit for their victory in Afghanistan.

ANOTHER CHINESE CITY SEES OUTBREAK OF DELTA VARIANT

A second city in southeastern China has seen a jump in COVID-19 cases in a delta variant outbreak that started late last week.

The National Health Commission said on Tuesday that 59 new cases had been identified in the latest 24-hour period, more than doubling the total to 102. All are in Fujian province on China's east coast.

The port city of Xiamen has confirmed 33 cases in the past two days. Another 59 cases have been found in Putian, about 150km (90 miles) north on the coast, where the outbreak was first detected.

Xiamen locked down affected neighbourhoods, closed entertainment and fitness venues and cancelled group activities including those for the upcoming Mid-Autumn festival holiday. Long-distance bus service to other parts of the province has been suspended.

China has largely stopped the spread of COVID-19 but has sporadic outbreaks. A delta variant outbreak in July and August spread to several provinces, raising concern about new and more contagious variants.

CHINA ENVOY BARRED FROM UK HOUSE OVER SANCTIONS ROW

The Chinese ambassador to Britain has been banned from attending an event in the country’s parliament because Beijing imposed sanctions earlier this year on lawmakers who highlighted alleged human right abuses in Xinjiang. China imposed the sanctions on nine British politicians, lawyers and an academic in March for spreading what it said were “lies and disinformation” the over the treatment of Uighur Muslims. Lindsay Hoyle, the speaker of the House of Commons, and John McFall, the speaker of the House of Lords, stepped in to prevent Zheng Zeguang from speaking in the parliament. Hoyle said: “I do not feel it’s appropriate for the ambassador for China to meet on the Commons estate and in our place of work when his country has imposed sanctions against some of our members.” Hoyle said he was not banning the Chinese ambassador permanently, but only while the sanctions remained in place.

APPLE ISSUES EMERGENCY SECURITY UPDATES TO CLOSE A SPYWARE FLAW

Apple issued emergency software updates for a critical vulnerability in its products on Monday after researchers uncovered a flaw that allows highly invasive spyware from Israel’s NSO Group to infect anyone’s iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch or Mac computer without so much as a click. Apple’s security team had worked around the clock to develop a fix since Tuesday, after researchers at Citizen Lab, a cybersecurity watchdog organisation at the University of Toronto, discovered that a Saudi activist’s iPhone had been infected with an advanced form of spyware from NSO.

The spyware, called Pegasus, used a novel method to invisibly infect Apple devices without victims’ knowledge. Known as a “zero click remote exploit,” it is considered the holy grail of surveillance because it allows governments, mercenaries and criminals to secretly break into someone’s device without tipping the victim off. Using the zero-click infection method, Pegasus can turn on a user’s camera and microphone, record messages, texts, emails, calls — even those sent via encrypted messaging and phone apps like Signal — and send them back to NSO’s clients at governments around the world. “This spyware can do everything an iPhone user can do on their device and more,” said John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at Citizen Lab, who teamed up with Bill Marczak, a senior research fellow at Citizen Lab, on the finding. The discovery means that more than 1.6 billion Apple products in use worldwide have been vulnerable to NSO’s spyware since at least March.

On Monday, Ivan Krstic, Apple’s head of security engineering and architecture commended Citizen Lab for its findings and urged customers to run the latest software updates for the fixes to take effect, by installing iOS 14.8, MacOS 11.6 and WatchOS 7.6.2. Apple has said it plans to introduce new security defences for iMessage, Apple’s texting application, in its next iOS 15 software update, expected later this year.

BOOKER’S SIX FINALISTS NAMED

Novels that explore historical injustices, the nature of consciousness and the dizzying impact of the internet are among six finalists for the Booker Prize for fiction. Three books by US authors are on the shortlist announced on Tuesday: Patricia Lockwood’s social media-steeped novel “No One is Talking About This”, Maggie Shipstead’s aviator saga “Great Circle” and Richard Powers’ “Bewilderment”, the story of an astrobiologist and his neurodivergent son. Three other contenders explore historical traumas: Sri Lankan author Anuk Arudpragasam’s tale of war and its aftermath, “A Passage North”; South Africa’s Damon Galgut’s story of racism and reckoning, “The Promise”; and British-Somali writer Nadifa Mohamed’s miscarriage-of-justice story “The Fortune Men”, set among dockers in 1950s Cardiff.